Cries for help from victims of the Heywood sex gang were repeatedly ignored by those who were supposed to protect them, a damning report has revealed.

The 29-page dossier shows how Rochdale council's social services department were told dozens of times that young girls were being groomed and sexually abused by a group of older men, but failed to intervene to stop it.

The report says social workers refused to acknowledge that the victims were being sexually exploited, and instead thought they were consenting to abuse they suffered, despite being under the age of legal sexual consent.

As a result they continued to be subjected to torrid sexual abuse by a controlling gang of older men.

Social services' failure to intervene sooner meant the victims continued to be abused for years after they first came forward to the authorities who they believed could end their torment and protect them from their abusers.

The findings are listed in a hard-hitting report produced by Rochdale's Safeguarding Children Board that paints a picture of a social services team that failed to understand the nature or the scale of the abuse taking place in theborough.

It was produced in the wake of the jailing of nine men earlier this year for grooming girls for sex.

They were convicted after five brave victims agreed to testify against them, but the report says dozens more could have been abused.

It reveals that a working group set up to investigate sexual exploitation in the borough identified 50 children, some as young as 10, who were at risk of being sexually exploited as early as 2007.

But it wasn't until 2010 that police launched Operation Span to begin to prosecute the offenders and it took a further two-years for the perpetrators to be jailed.

Throughout this time victims continued to come forward to try and break the cycle of abuse, but the report revealed the authorities failed to take action, or to protect them from threats and intimidation the sex gang used to control their victims.

The report said: “For children who came into contact with social services, it often appeared that 'no further action' would be taken.

“Case files state that children were often considered to be 'making their own choices' and to be 'engaging in consensual sexual activity'.

The report details the case of one victim, who has been given the pseudonym Suzie to protect her identity.

In early 2009 after falling pregnant as a result of the abuse she suffered, she told the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), a specialist sexual health and support service, that she was being exploited.

Social services took no action because, aged 16, she was 'considered to be making her own choices'.

She also confessed her ordeal to police, but withdrew her statement because 'she was frightened of the repercussions and did not have confidence in agencies' ability to protect her'.

While police did try to act against those who abused Suzie and others in 2009, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) failed to charge the men on the grounds of cost and because they said Suzie was an unreliable witness.

In 2010 Suzie again appealed to police for help. It was then they launched Operation Span, but it wasn't until 2011 that action was properly taken by authorities to help her, three years after the abuse first began.

The report concluded: “There is no doubt that Suzie was suffering significant harm from 2008 onwards. Indeed Suzie told several professionals, on several occasions, that she was being sexually abused and exploited by a number of men.

“The nature of harm and of the 'relationship' between Suzie and the offences was understood by the CIT and Early Break service, however their referrals were generally not acted upon by children's social services.

“Social work practitioners and managers wholly over estimated the extent to which Suzie could legally or psychologically consent to the sexual violence being perpetrated against her.”

It added that if safeguarding processes been followed: “The harm that Suzie was suffering could have been mitigated and her risk of suffering harm in the future could have been reduced.”

The report is the first of three looking into how the sex gang was allowed to get away with grooming girls for so long.

An internal review by Rochdale council is due to report back next month while an in-depth Serious Case Review was announced earlier this month.